According to ICANN, the purpose of this survey is to update and compare the results against a similar survey SSAC conducted in October 2007, see Survey of IPv6 Support Among Commercial Firewalls [SAC 021] [PDF, 236 KB].

The initial survey invited vendors of commercial firewalls to answer certain questions:

• How broadly is IPv6 transport supported by commercial firewalls?
• Is IPv6 support available from commercial firewalls for all market segments?
• Which commonly used security enforcement features can be deployed from commercial firewalls when IPv6 transport is used?
• Can an organization enforce a security policy from commercial firewalls when using IPv6 that is commensurate to a policy currently supported when IPv4 is used?
SSAC invites vendors to assist in updating that survey for 2010.
Unlike the 2007 survey, SSAC will also invite business users of commercial firewalls to answer a similar set of questions:
• Are user organizations that have adopted IPv6 using commercial firewalls to protect their networks?
• What features are user organizations employing when they deploy firewalls in IPv6 networks?
• Are user organizations finding that the security services they used at IPv4 firewalls are available for IPv6 transport as well?
• Are user organizations satisfied that commercial firewalls can enforce the same security policy whether IPv6 or IPv4 transport is used?

As was the case for the 2007 survey, SSAC will analyze and publish aggregated responses. We will aggregate and analyze vendor results separately from user organization responses. We will compare the 2010 vendor responses against the 2007 responses to measure how availability has changed since the first survey.

Vendors and business users of commercial firewalls are invited to participate in the survey online at: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB22A9WG4UQWG